


the death of summer

by Xirdneth



Series: Hannictober 2017 [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Banter, Hannictober, Hannictober Challenge, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Finale, inner conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 05:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12450456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xirdneth/pseuds/Xirdneth
Summary: After three years of peace, devoid of murder and blood, one fateful autumnal walk proves to throw all that under the bus when Hannibal and Will come across a corpse concealed in a pile of leaves. For Hannictober, for the prompt "Leaf Piles".





	the death of summer

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am aware how late this is (it is currently half 5 in the morning, 22nd of October) for the third prompt, but I couldn't resist. I wrote the majority of this late at night, and it is un-beta'd, so I hope it will be coherent and enjoyable. Warnings for descriptions of bodily harm, death, all that good old Hannibal stuff.

**I** t's a gorgeous day in Montreal, Canada, despite the nagging cold; Will hardly feels it, though, too relieved that summer has finally perished, sliding into far more familiar weather. No more nights too hot to handle, and not in the fun way, and no more sticky days. Again, not in the fun way. Instead, he can sleep peacefully, sweat-free and cool, and spend his days taking walks with Hannibal.

      Will inhales the brittle air and sighs. Hannibal is quick to pick up on it.

      “Are you alright, Will?”

      He can only smile at that. “Yeah. Just thankful for the weather.”

      “Not a fan of the heat?”

      “Are you?”

      “Every type of weather has something to appreciate,” comes his response.

      Will rolls his eyes.

      “What?” Hannibal inquires, faux-innocent.

      “Of course you'd say that.”

      “Meaning?” There's amusement there, beneath a veneer of curiousity, so subtle that only Will would be capable of intuiting it.

      “You know exactly what I mean. You're the most annoyingly happy person I know.”

      “I disagree.”

      Will snorts. “Not being able to kill people doesn't make you an unhappy person.”

      “I disagree,” he repeats.

      “I thought it wasn't a _compulsion_ , Hannibal?”

      “It is far from a compulsion,” he responds, with the slight upwards tilt of his chin, “it is merely a _nuisance_ to have no way of dealing with irritances.”

      Another snort; he is becoming perilously close to laughter. Odd, how relaxed he is, discussing murder. There is no guilt accompanying it, this time, because he is not indulging it. He is _restricting_ it. He feels light as air, knowing that nobody is dying over pettiness. That, his moral core cannot oblige, though he understands Hannibal's frustrations more than anybody else could. “There are _other_ ways to deal with your problems than murdering them.”

      “They are not _nearly_ as efficient.”

      “For you,” is his retort, “I'd argue they're _very_ efficient for the people who aren't dead.”

      “That is precisely what makes it a nuisance.”

      “Well,” Will says, a little tired of—albeit slightly amused by—Hannibal's stubbornness, “you can't deny that it's been beneficial to us in the long run. We wouldn't last very long on the run if you were to drop a Ripper kill right underneath the nose of the FBI.” He evades attaching any names to the impersonal monolith, for his own benefit. For all of Hannibal's gripes, Will is by far having the most difficult time to adapting to his new life. A life composed entirely of Hannibal and he, and the entity they form together. He doesn't mention this, because he is aware enough of Hannibal's intelligence—one that the infamous _Ripper_ wordlessly boasts is above every other lifeform on the planet bar, hopefully, him—to know, _hope_ , that Will has drawn the short stick in their arrangement.

      Then again, it is not unheard of for Hannibal's ego to best his intelligence.

      Hannibal sighs, melodramatic as ever, lamenting his _horrid_ life of not brutally murdering anybody who skips him in a queue. “I suppose you have a point.” Then, all of a sudden: Hannibal freezes, nose twitching like a bloodhound catching a scent. Will, synced to his partner's psyche to the point of mirroring, stops too, although he hasn't the slightest idea why.

      “I think,” Hannibal begins, tone benign despite the excitement that is creeping into the foundations of his cadence, “that your thoughts on the matter of murder may be subject to change, however.”

      Despite the hairs standing on edge at the sheer _thrill_ building in Hannibal's eyes, resurrecting an expression that Will hasn't seen in years, Will manages to remain unfazed. “Oh?” his voice is a drawl, half-genuine in its relaxed state, half-falsified, trying to subdue the electricity stirring in his chest, “and why would you say that?”

      “Because,” and there is, without a doubt, a certain _giddiness_ to his voice now, a giddiness Will is certain only he bears the ability to hear, “there is a corpse beneath the pile of leaves by that tree."

      It takes a moment for Hannibal's words to land, and when they do, he hardly registers them; suspended in disbelief by strings of shock, Will finds himself blank, face wiped of emotion. Then, he laughs, a short burst that is composed more of breath than sound. “That's a fucked up joke,” comes his snort on the tail-end of his laugh. “And nothing's going to change my mind, Hannibal.” Back to being slightly reprimanding, he becomes far more solemn. “Murder is off the table.”

      “While the irony of the situation makes for incredible comedy, I assure you, Will, that the joke is not my invention, but God's. And,” he addends, almost sternly, “I would advise you to not so boldly test fate.”

      Will holds his stare, almost challengingly, for a few, long moments. Hannibal, unfazed, does not balk. Rather, he looks amused, which is rather disconcerting considering the apparent sheen of hunger in his eyes.

      Eventually, his shoulders sink. “Fine. I'll rise to the bait.”

      The trek is small yet feels long, gravel crunching beneath his feet, and as he approaches, he himself wonders what outcome he is hoping for: either, there is nothing there and he is saved from the burden of another's grim death, but victim to Hannibal's light-hearted mockery, the resulting humiliation enough to make his skin crawl pre-emptively; _or_ , there is, in fact, a body, Hannibal is being honest, and then there is a dead body on their hands. He still is uncertain, but finds himself leaning towards the first.

      Faintly, he hears the hushed crunch of gravel beneath Hannibal's shoes, and knows that he is shadowing him. “I can hear you, you kn—“ his casual call back is slaughtered mid-sentence as it hits him: a pungent odour, one he so intimately familiar with. The unmistakeable scent of death. No, not death; _rot_. Though it has been confirmed, the machinery of his body refuses to comply with the growing horror of his psyche, steadily marching on until he is kneeling by the leaf pile. Colour drains from his face as the scent possesses him; in his separation from it, he has grown weak to it, and the scent along conjures images of viscera and vileness from his past, each accompanied with varying levels of moral horror. He swallows the ball of nausea in his throat.

      Hannibal, his shadow, is close enough that his heat pours into his skin through their clothes. “I told you so,” he murmurs, and though his tone carries the jest that is both friendly and cruel, his voice is not unkind. His palm finds Will's shoulder. Will does not move: his mind is alive with memory. “You don't have to look, Will. We may continue on and return to our lives. Leave this place, so that we may never see what comes of this.”

      Will inhales through his mouth, through the wall of his teeth, and tries to swallow the surge of annoyance – both directed at himself and Hannibal, for this predicament – so that he may exhale a closed eye sigh. When he re-opens his eyes, his irritance has been subdued somewhat, and so when he speaks, his tone is almost fond. “God, you piss me off.” As if to soften the blow of his words, he reaches to meet Hannibal's hand on his shoulder. “Thanks, but I'm going to look.”

      “I know,” Hannibal says, still voice not completely concealing his juxtaposing melancholy and excitement; he has always been a man of striking duality, if not entirely composed of incomprehension, after all.

      “You knew I would. You were hoping I would.” After all these years, the anger is leeched from him; he has long accepted Hannibal's psyche, though he is not always _tolerant_ of his inner workings. There is, true to form, a slight resentment, though it is, of course, a double-edged sword. Whatever intolerances he holds for Hannibal, he holds double for himself.

      “I never hope for anything,” Hannibal says, and despite the surprising nihilism of it, his tone is reasonably bright, “but I was curious to see what you would do.”

      “Ah, that old adage.” Not so unfamiliar: their three years may have been devoid of murder, but they have not been devoid of tests, of games. Will is nothing if not withholding when he wants to be, and Hannibal is ever so curious. “I believe another applicable one would be 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks',” he says, not without his own brand of dark humour.

      Hannibal sniffs, both in amusement and derisiveness of his comparison. “A dog is hardly an appropriate metaphor for yourself, Will, but do as you wish.”

      Will allows a smile at that, and continues staring at the leaf pile. He is trying to re-aquaint himself with the scent. It is proving to not be such a difficult task. He isn't certain how he feels about that.

      “You're putting it off,” Hannibal acknowledges.

      “Yes.”

      “You don't want to look.”

      “I do,” he argues, “and I don't. _Want_ isn't particularly the word I'd use for it.”

      “What would you use for it?”

      “A word that hasn't been invented yet. A word caught between _need_ , _urge_ and _oath_.”

      “I see.” Will doesn't have to look at him to see the imperceptible nod of understanding Hannibal is undoubtedly doing.

      “Ah, fuck. Bandaid,” he says, and sweeps off a sludge of leaves—a _sludge_ , curious—with his arm, only to reveal the ugly bloodless grey of what must be skin. Death is particularly potent now, utterly drowning the air. “ _Fuck_.”

      “You can stop now.”

      “I can.” He won't. Now, he has involved himself in the Doe's death; he has discovered them beyond a suspicious scent. He has contaminated the scene of the crime. He _contaminated_ the _goddamn_ scene of the _fucking_ crime. Morality dictates that he _must_ stay here, else risk a botched investigation; an injust end for whomever the Doe may be (or injust until otherwise proven); an oddity in the case that may, _may_ , spark suspicion. All suspiciousness revolving around murders, beyond the usual suspiciousness, are no doubt still monitored by the FBI, and if not, Lounds' cult following will no doubt be scouring every true crime fact in hopes of being the ones to find the legendary _Murder Husbands_. Before he continues, he dons his leather gloves, so that he doesn't leave any mark.

      “Smart,” Hannibal notes.

      Pluck, pluck; with each removal of a leaf, most clinging to either another or to the skin itself, he grows quicker. Almost fevered. _Bandaid, bandaid_ : a mantra, but it is meaningless now. He doesn't do this out of a need to get it over and done with. Truth be told, the curiousity is killing him. What a mess, his head.

      It is when he pulls off a particularly sticky, wide leaf off of a stump that he realizes the severity of the homicide. As it peels away, gross with coagulated red and brown, he eyes the stump.

      “It's like an eye.” Will agrees, nonverbally, and finds himself transfixed in its stare.

      “Decapitation.”

      “Not your average murder.”

      Will sighs, heavy with a younger Will's exhaustion. “It never is.” Further unmasking of the body shows that the decapitation is not the only brutality inflicted on the body: fingers, removed at the second joint; skin, at random intervals, removed, exposing the red innards, muscle; feet removed, one at its ankle, the other, taking the entire calf—and knee—with it. “Definitely not your average murder.”

      “No face, no teeth, no fingerprints.”

      “No identification,” Will follows the point to its logical conclusion. “I'm going to assume that, considering the amount of care going into removing the identifying body parts, the Doe won't have much of a defining record, either.”

      “No DNA,” Hannibal follows his theory.

      “Police are going to have a nightmare with this one.”

      “Designed to be an eternal cold case.”

      “No justice. Killer goes free.”

      “They don't have to.” Excitement is peaking in Hannibal's voice. That, and something else. Something Will doesn't want to acknowledge.

      Will's jaw moves with his tongue as he thinks. He's already gotten himself involved. Contaminated the case. Not that it was likely they would have been discovered otherwise – not for a while anyway. Too out of the way, its stink oppressed until one approached it deliberately – or had the olfactory power of three bloodhounds – it would be left to rot away. Destroying more evidence. “No.” His jaw sets. He stands. “They don't have to.” He is already taking a step back, preparing himself.

      “It was a nice three years,” Hannibal says.

      Will eyes him drily, knowing it is more for his benefit—as much as it stings—than it is honest on Hannibal's part. “Yeah. It really was.”

      He closes his eyes. The pendulum swings.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, kudos / comments are heartily appreciated! Every one makes my day a little brighter.
> 
> If you would like, you can also check out my blog @bedannigram! 
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3


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